Conference Presentation

Thesis:

I argue that Sarah Savage’s The Factory Girl illustrates the relationship between education, female agency and virtue by circumventing the traditional male gatekeepers; this allows Savage to confirm Mary Burnam’s status as a true woman while challenging the theory of separate spheres because her increasing agency allows Mary to both produce and maintain, actions normally reserved for men only.


How my thesis differs from / adds to / intervenes in scholarship:

There is very little scholarship that focuses solely on Savage’s The Factory Girl. The scholarship that does exist, such as Thomas B. Lovell’s article “Separate Spheres and Extensive Circles,” examines labor, virtue, and womanhood but not education. Because Mary is a school teacher to so many different audiences in the novel, I wanted to focus on the connections between education, female agency and virtue and the ways in which Mary’s actions undermine the idea of separate spheres. Much research about the educational revolution in America has been done by scholars such as Cott, Kelley, Ryan, Fetterely, Davidson, Byam, etc., but it tends to focus on the later years, 1830-1860. By examining Savage’s novel, published almost fifteen years earlier, I hope to re-include it in the canon from which it has been excluded.


One example of how my argument works:

The strongest example from my paper is the way in which Mary’s circumvention of Dr. Mandeville offers the biggest increase in her agency, and therefore the largest broadening of her sphere of influence. Dr. Mandeville is the gatekeeper to her access to the factory children and the opportunity to shape their economical and social futures. Despite his authority as a doctor and part owner of the factory in town, he is constrained by Mary’s virtue and has to wait until she volunteers for the job of school teacher. The shifting economy of the time period is what enables education to become a valuable currency, providing the opportunity for future self-sufficiency. Mary’s role as a school teacher is perhaps her most powerful one, and this bolstering of her agency gives her power over traditional authority roles such as parents, doctors and clergymen.


One area of my project that I am thinking through, dissatisfied with, or interested in pursuing further:

Anyone familiar with the novel will notice that I did not include all the male figures or gatekeepers that Mary encounters: specifically, I left out her beau William Raymond, the factory agent Mr. Crawford, and her future husband, the widower Mr. Danforth. I made these decisions based on time and page constraints, but the addition of these men would be necessary to provide complete picture of how education, agency, and virtue are working together in the novel. Because I am not very strong on Marxist and economy theory, I tended to shy away from making bold statements regarding class and economy, but further research into that area would be illuminating. Any recommendations beyond Marx would be welcome.

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Session 1. 7:15-7:45 The American Novel in Context.

CHAIR: Jessica Workman

Robert Miyares. Physiognomy: Success and Failures of Physical Interpretation in Charles Brockden Brown’s Ormond.

Amanda Ewoldt. True Womanhood and Anti-Catholicism in Rebecca Reed’s Six Months in a Convent.

Serge Desir. Man About Town: The Male Voice in Fall River.

Discussants: Jay Jay, Ed, Rich


Stroup Index Card 1:
Two of these papers deal with a fictionalized version of a true event (the murder of Sarah Maria Cornell and the burning of the Ursuline Convent). If you were able to track down non-fiction accounts of these events, what insight did you gain by comparing it to your text? Did you find evidence of American myth-making, or other tensions between the “historic realties” of the situation and the fictionalized representations of the characters and towns?

Two of the texts involve sexual violence against women, while the other associates Catholics with sexual deviance. Do you think the decision to make explicit or implied references to these sexual exploits and attacks are connected to the victim’s agency status (no agency, plenty of agency, or the attack served as a catalyst for gaining agency)?

All three papers make reference to the virtue, or lack of virtue, of its female characters. According to Welter’s barometer of true womanhood, do any of these women achieve the status of true woman? If not, why? Do culture, class, education, religion play a factor?